


In Both Our Skies

by softlyforgotten



Category: Bandom, Doctor Who, The Like, The Young Veins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-22
Updated: 2011-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 22:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/pseuds/softlyforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fifth season first episode AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Both Our Skies

The rope was digging into her palms, scratching against unfamiliar skin. She felt new and out of breath and exhilarated with it, and she climbed up and up, forcing her way towards that dark patch of sky. It was cold and she was soaked to the bone and shivering, but that was alright. She was chewing on her bottom lip and grinning stupidly, and when she hauled herself up and over the edge she tumbled down to firm ground and lay on her back and _whooped_.

"Wow," she said, stretching, twisting her toes down and her arms up. "I feel _great_."

The air was crisp and cold. She sniffed it and then brought her hand up to her mouth, licked at a smudge of dirt on her finger. "1994," she said. "Somewhere in America, I think. That's new. Los Angeles?"

"Las Vegas," someone said, and she sat up. A little boy was standing a few feet away from her, eyes wide and dark, mouth open, staring at her. He was wearing pants that were a little too short for him, baring knobbly ankles, and a sweater that was frayed at the cuffs. He was picking at a loose thread.

"Hello," she said. "Vegas, is it? It's a bit _dark_ to be Vegas, I would have thought. Where's that neon skyline?" She picked herself up, brushing the dirt off her knees, looking up at the cloudy sky and then back down at herself. She shook one leg out, made a face. She didn't like pants, she decided, not this time. They were so boring.

"We're in the suburbs," the boy volunteered. He looked up at her, pale little face with those big eyes. She wondered if he would grow into them, one day. "Who are you?"

"Don't know yet," she said cheerfully. "Still sorting things out. You can call me the Doctor, though." She frowned slightly. "Or Z. Maybe. Hmmn. I will have to work it out." That felt right, though. She thought she'd gone rather long enough being completely nameless.

The little boy swallowed, folded his arms defensively. "I don't like doctors," he said.

Z grinned at him. "Me either," she said. "I'm kind of special. You'll see." She tilted her head to the side. "Who are _you_?"

"George Ryan Ross," the boy said. "The third."

"That's a very long name for someone as short as you," Z told him.

George Ryan Ross III bristled, drawing himself up as tall as he could. He could reach just below Z's breasts, which wasn't saying much. She didn't appear to be very tall, this time round.

"I'm the fastest runner in third grade," he said.

"Course you are," Z said. "You'd have to be. Tiny little thing like you."

"You're not a very nice doctor," he said.

"I'm the best Doctor," Z said. She cocked her head to the side and frowned. "I'm also very hungry. Do you have any food?"

He stood very still, watching her, frowning a little.

Z said, "C'mon, Georgie."

"People call me Ryan," he said, frowning.

"Sure thing, Georgie," Z said, cheerfully. "I'm _really_ hungry. Can we get a move on?"

His mouth twitched. "Alright," he said. "Come on."

Z held out her hand and Ryan hesitated, then took it with a tiny nod. His hand was smaller than she expected, and she clasped it tight, squeezing it just the once. "Lead on, Macduff," she said, and all the words in her mouth tasted new and exciting. She turned her face up to the sky and saw it for the first time, again, and laughed out loud in delight. Oh, but this was going to be _brilliant_.

Ryan let go of her hand when he opened the front door. Z stood on the threshold for a moment, shivering, back straight, and she closed her eyes and felt ugly things hidden away rear their heads. This, she thought, was a no good house. That could wait, though.

They slipped quietly into the kitchen. Z perched cross-legged on the table and whispered, "Are your parents here? I can be very, very quiet." She reconsidered, frowning. "Well. I'm almost sure I can."

"It's just my dad," Ryan said. "He won't wake up tonight, no matter how loud we are." His face was so serious, and Z pulled a face at him, just to see if he would smile. He didn't, though he looked momentarily confused.

"Deep sleeper is he, your dad?" Z asked.

"I guess."

"What happens if you have nightmares?"

Ryan shrugged. "I go back to sleep. Or I get up until I feel better."

"Yeah?" Z looked at the half-finished glass of milk sitting on the table. "Did I wake you up tonight? Me and my box?"

"No," he said. "I was already awake."

Z looked around the kitchen, at the empty bottles piled by the sink, the shabbiness, the way the walls got particularly filthy at a certain point. Z was almost sure it would be the point at which a third grader was no longer able to reach. An empty wine bottle in the middle of the table had flowers stuck in it, but they were drooping now. Z looked back at Ryan, and realised he was watching her, arms folded, scowling.

"I'm not going away," he said. "I don't care what kind of doctor you are."

"I'm _the_ Doctor," Z said. She rested her arms on her knees and looked down at him. "Why don't you want to go away?"

"I don't want another home," he said, stubbornly. "I don't want another dad or – or some new mom, I don't need it and I don't want it."

"Okay," Z said. "Why do you think _I'm_ going to take you, anyway? Do I look like that kind of grown up normal?" She really hoped she didn't.

He narrowed his eyes, suspicious. "You're kind of weird," he said, grudgingly, like he didn't want to admit it. "But your – your box still says 'police' on it."

"Oh," Z said. She flapped a hand dismissively. "Never mind that. I can – we _could_ go places, if you wanted. I'm not talking about a new home, though."

He blinked at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Adventure," Z said. Ryan stared at her. Z smiled beatifically. "Do you mind if I see what's in your fridge?"

Ryan said, voice low, "There's not much."

"That's okay," Z said. "I could eat anything."

She slipped down from the table, opening the fridge, and Ryan appeared at her side holding out a plate for her. "A horse?" he asked, and Z glanced at him in surprise. There was a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"A racehorse," Z said. "Two of them. Ever eaten racehorse, Georgie? They're great. A little stringy, that's all."

"What about something furry?" Ryan asked.

"Like a peach?"

"Like a lion."

Z bared her teeth and made chomping motions. He actually laughed at that, and Z beamed. She pulled out a piece of cold pizza, a couple of spoonfuls of cold mashed potatoes, two rotten strawberries, and a wilted stalk of celery. Then she went to the cupboards and spread peanut butter over the whole thing. Ryan watched with mild interest.

"Is that good?" he asked, after she'd piled a whole bunch of things onto a fork and taken her first bite.

"Fabulous," Z said. She reached behind her and grabbed another fork, offering it to him. He took it and sat down on the table with her, both of them cross-legged right in the middle of it. When Z caught his eye, he smiled shyly.

"So," Z said, her mouth full. "You have nightmares tonight?"

He blinked at her. "How did you know?"

"Bit late for a little boy to be sitting up," Z said, glancing at the clock. "Besides. I can still hear them."

Ryan swallowed. "Hear what?"

"Your nightmares," Z said. She closed her eyes, for a moment. The house was still buzzing, dark things crawling in corners, just waiting for her to turn her back. They'd be waiting a long while.

Ryan breathed in. "My dad says they're just dreams, and everybody has them," he said. "And Ginger Smith says that – that they sound yucky and I shouldn't read scary books just before I go to bed. But."

"But," Z agreed. Without quite realising it, she'd pulled her sonic screwdriver out of her pocket and was toying with it absently. She flicked it up, the light skittering across the ceiling, and felt something in the dark start backward. Z nodded to herself, satisfied.

"What's that?" Ryan asked.

"My sonic screwdriver," Z said. "It's going to help us sort out those nightmares of yours."

Ryan looked at her for a long moment and then smiled, sweet and unsure. "Really?"

"Yeah," Z said. She hopped down off the table, held out her hand. "C'mon. Show me around."

He'd only really led her down the hallway a little way before Z's hair was prickling on the back of her neck, and she took a sharp twist to the left, pushing her way into a room. "Here," she said, and Ryan looked up at her solemnly, hand warm in hers.

"This is my room," he said.

Z frowned down at him. "Really?" It looked strangely bare for an eight year old boy; there was a bed with the covers rumpled and a tiny bookcase, and a skateboard tucked in the corner, and a wardrobe, but nothing else, no toys, no pictures pinned on walls. There was no clutter, no brightness. There was also nowhere to hide. Z swept the light of her sonic screwdriver around the room, and grinned as she heard the frightened whisper of a thousand dark things.

"That's the noise," Ryan said. He was holding onto her hand tighter now, her skin turning white around his grip. "That's the – in my dreams, I hear it, and I wake up and they follow me. Where's it coming from?"

Z's eye had landed on something else; a crack, hidden by the shadows above the skirting board, running a little way along the wall in Ryan's room. She walked towards it, dropping to her knees and running her fingertips along the edge, not quite touching.

"Everywhere," she breathed.

Ryan blinked down at her. "What?"

"The whole universe," Z whispered, "all of it, all of the tiny parts and places and secrets, all of it pushed together and fighting and dangerous, right here in your bedroom, George Ryan Ross III, what do you make of that? No wonder your dreams are so bad, look at all the dangers and wonders and terrible, inexplicable things you've got pouring into your head, into your sleep every night, look at all the things that have gotten out."

Ryan leaned on her back, resting his chin on her shoulder. "What are we going to do?" he whispered, and Z turned to smile briefly up at him.

"We're going to send them all back where they belong," she said.

"Where's that?"

"Don't know," Z said. "Not here, though." She looked up at him. "You're a brave kid, aren't you, Georgie?"

Ryan bit his lip. "Not really," he said.

"Okay," Z said. "But you're a fast runner, right? The best in third grade."

Ryan hesitated, then nodded.

"Get ready," Z said. "Just in case." Then she levelled her sonic at the crack, and pushed it up to the highest power.

For a second, there was just the green glow and the crackle of static, and then the crack split, getting wider and wider, white light pouring out of it that Z instinctively shied back from, tugging Ryan with her. She could hear scraping and screaming, but only as if it was coming through fuzzily from another channel, crossed lines on the telephone or something. Black shapes flitted against the white, and Z grinned and waved goodbye to them, felt the house quieten around them.

The split shrank suddenly, closing in on itself and then disappearing all together. Z ran her finger along the now smooth wall. "That's very strange," she said, voice low.

"You fixed it," Ryan said. "How did you fix it like that?"

"I think your nightmares will be better now," Z said. It wasn't an answer to his question, but she was trying to ignore the slightly queasy feeling in her gut right now. It could wait, just a little while. She turned to Ryan and smiled. "And you didn't run away, either. I think you're braver than you know."

Ryan's cheeks flushed. "It wasn't that scary," he said.

"Scary enough," Z said.

He smiled, that sweet, uncertain one. "Will I be able to sleep now?"

"Yes," Z said. She looked straight at him. "If you want to."

Ryan blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Z said, "that the police box that isn't really a police box? The one I parked in your backyard? It's a spaceship."

Ryan stared at her, eyes wide, free hand pressed to his open mouth.

Z nodded. "And we can travel time," she said. "Together. If you want."

Ryan started to smile. "I should maybe," he said, "I should, um. My dad needs—"

"Time travel," Z reminded him. "I can bring you back here tomorrow morning, if you want. What do you _want_?"

"I should," Ryan said, and stopped. He stood quietly for a moment. Z waited. Then he said, "I should pack a bag."

"If you like," Z said. She shook his hand, solemnly. "I'm going to go put the TARDIS up the right way. So you don't fall into the swimming pool and get all wet like me." She shook out her pant leg mournfully. "I'm going to change my clothes, too."

"Okay," he said. "I. You'll come back?"

"Five minutes, I promise," Z said, and touched his nose. "Get dressed, George Ryan Ross III, and decide where you'd like to go first. Then we'll be off."

She raced back outside and to the TARDIS, running her hand smooth along the blue paint. "Hello, darling," she said, and looked up. Ryan was leaning out of his window, waving at her, and he was smiling properly for the first time all night, big and glad. Z laughed and waved back.

"I'll see you in five minutes!" she called. "Don't run away, Georgie-boy!"

\---

It was really more like ten, because Z had a little too much fun deciding what she wanted to wear. There were vintage knee high socks though, with lace edging, and the cutest little dress ever; she thought she could be forgiven. She felt a little guiltier when she pushed open the door and realised she must have left the TARDIS running too long, messed something up, because it was daylight outside, and little Georgie was nowhere to be seen.

She shielded her eyes and looked up at the sky. It was still early morning, only seven AM or so, so probably he hadn't left for school yet. Z picked her way across the garden path, cautious with her new shoes. They had the best heels ever, totally kickass, which made up for the way she still felt a little unsteady on her feet, new in this body.

"Hello?" she called. There was no answer from the house, so she pushed open the door and poked her head inside, wary of meeting Ryan's dad now in daylight hours. Then and then again: the amount of bottles on the sink, she doubted he was an early riser.

"Georgie?" Z walked into the kitchen. She frowned. The bottles were gone, tidied away, and the empty bottle of wine on the table had fresh flowers. Z wondered if Ryan had been waiting up for her all night, trying to pass the time. Something squeezed at her hearts, both of them, and she resolved to show him something amazing straight away to make up for it. The Cliffs of Tunersania, perhaps, with the wildflowers scattered like brightly coloured stars across the top of them.

She peeked under the table, to see if he'd fallen asleep there, but the kitchen was empty besides her. "Georgie?" she called again. "Are you here? Hello? Wake up!"

She walked back out to the hallway, making her way along and knocking lightly on each door until she came to Ryan's. When she rested her hand on it, something prickled at her fingertips, burnt them, and she snatched them back, cradled her hand to her chest.

"Oh, no," she said. "No, fuck. No, I got rid of you. Georgie!"

Z pushed the door open, widened her eyes in surprise, and then fell to the floor, everything going dark.

\---

When she woke up, she could feel a lump coming up on her head. "Huh," she said, touching it tentatively. It throbbed in an interesting sort of way. Z grinned, and opened her eyes.

She was lying on a single bed in a room that she recognised. It had been Ryan's, this room, and there were traces of the universe still in it, but it wasn't his anymore. There were posters on the walls, and books piled everywhere, and a desk with a laptop. There was a guitar tucked into the corner.

There was also a young man sitting on the chair just opposite the bed, knees pulled up to his chest, arms curled around his knees, staring at her.

"Hello," she said, fingers twitching for her sonic screwdriver. "Who are you, and what the _fuck_ have you done with Georgie?"

The guy narrowed his eyes at her. "Why are you breaking into my house?" he demanded, straightening a little so that he didn't look quite so young. He still looked pretty young, though. And weird. He was wearing pinstriped pants and a flower-patterned shirt, and a fedora. Also about eight scarves, and black shiny shoes.

" _Your_ house?" Z blinked at him. "Are you Georgie's dad? You're too young to have kids."

"You don't know me," he said, scowling. "And – and I don't know who you're talking about."

Z sat up properly, pressed her hand to her mouth. "No," she said. "No, you do, the little kid who lives here – Georgie, George Ryan Ross III, he's about eight years old, fastest runner in the third grade—"

The guy was staring at her like she'd dropped out of the sky from nowhere. Which, okay, technicalities. Whatever.

"He doesn't live here anymore," he said, slowly. "Georgie – Georgie hasn't lived here for a long time."

Z clenched her jaw. "How long?"

The guy breathed in, and stood up. "Why are you breaking into my house?" he said, voice flat and hard.

"This isn't your house," Z snapped. "This is Georgie's, only, only something's gone wrong, I've skipped too much time, I've – how long has it been? A month? Six months? Fuck, don't let it be a year – do you know where he's gone?"

"I think," the guy said coldly, standing up, "you should answer my question, first."

Z flapped a hand at him, annoyed. "There's a little boy who lives – who lived here," she said. "And I promised him, I promised five minutes and we'd run away and." She stopped, narrowed her eyes. "Wait. Did you knock me out?"

The guy flushed. "I thought you were some kind of crazy murderer," he said, then added, defensively, "You still could be."

"So you knocked me out," Z said, shaking her head. She looked down at the floor, where a heavy book lay discarded. "With the Oxford Dictionary? Jesus, dude. Give a girl some warning."

The guy shuffled his feet a little awkwardly. "I didn't know you were a girl," he said. "I just heard you shouting and – your voice is pretty low."

"Is it?" Z hummed something to herself and then nodded, interested. "It is, isn't it. Huh. That's cool."

Something crackled under her fingertips, static electricity racing along the bedspread. Z jumped up, reeling a little bit when her head reacted before she steadied herself. When she turned around, the guy was staring at her, a tiny crease of concentration between his brows. He said, soft, "You look—"

"I don't have time to find out just now," Z told him. "There's something _wrong_ with this house, and I have to find Georgie, and I'm going to need you to stop getting in my way."

He gaped at her. "What? There's something wrong?"

"I closed a gap in the universe here, not that long ago," Z said grimly. "I'm thinking I might not have closed them all." She tilted her head to the side. "If you stick with me, will you promise not to knock me out again?"

"I promise," he said.

"And," she said, "I want you to help me find Georgie, afterward."

He stared at her without replying, dark eyes, and something in the room shivered. Z cursed and grabbed at his hand without waiting for a response, dragging him out of the room and down the corridor. There was a little flight of stairs, and she raced up it, pulling him with her through the trapdoor and into a cramped, dusty attic. She shoved him down next to the trapdoor and hunched beside him, their hands still clasped. Best to get up high, she thought, see if she could work out what it was from here. Possibly this body of hers had a bit of a lizard brain mentality. Z wondered if that would be a good or bad thing.

"If there's something wrong with the house," he whispered, "shouldn't we be getting out of it?"

"Don't you want to find out what it is, first?" Z countered, and he looked at her. There was a spark of _something_ in his eyes, and she grinned at him. "What's your name?"

"What's yours?"

"The Doctor," Z said.

His face fell, suddenly and without warning, eyes miserable. "You're a liar," he mumbled.

"I'm not," she said, hurt. "Tell me your name."

"No," he said. "Your fake one isn't even a proper name, anyway."

"It's _not_ fake," Z said, only then the house _lurched_ , and they both fell straight back out of the trapdoor in the attic, tumbling on the floor. " _Ow_ ," Z said, while the guy wheezed out a curse word, and they both struggled to get free of each other. Z tugged down her skirt, and the guy flushed and looked away.

"What's going on?" the guy panted.

"Listen to me," Z said urgently, "I know you think I'm a murderer or whatever, but it's _very important_ for you to tell me who else is here – if Georgie _is_ still here, or his dad, or – you have to tell me so I can save them—"

"It's just us," the guy said.

"Okay," Z said. "Alright, then." She stood up, slowly, and pulled out her sonic screwdriver, pointed it at the blackest corner of shadows. She held out a hand to help pull the guy to his feet, and turned her sonic on slowly, letting the whine build in intensity. She shot the guy a grin, quickly. "Are you brave, No Name?"

"No," he said quietly. "But I'm a fast runner."

Z stopped, frowning, but before she had time to properly respond, the mass of shadows was expanding, crawling up and out over the early morning light in the house, taking up everything. Something awful and evil leered out at her, and Z tightened her grip on the sonic and said, "Oh, baby, did you ever pick the wrong time to get bored."

 **TELL ME, DOCTOR,** the thing hissed, right into her head, ow, fuck, she hated it when things did that. Beside her, the guy was flinching, twisting into her, bumping his head against her shoulder like he was trying to hide from it. **WHAT TIME IS IT?**

"I'm still sorting that one out," Z told it, pleasantly. "How about you give me your name and rank and all that and then I can send you back to where you came from? No harm, no foul."

 **I'M SURE YOU WOULD LIKE THAT, DOCTOR,** it said, and she could hear its laughter, the cruel savagery of it. **BUT YOU SEE, I'M RATHER FOND OF GEORGIE'S HEAD THESE DAYS. I'D HATE TO FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO GO.**

"Georgie's gone," Z said. "If you think I'm going to let you hunt him down before I do—"

 **I THINK YOU'LL FIND,** it told her, **THAT I AM A LITTLE AHEAD OF YOU THERE, DOCTOR.**

"Why does it keep saying your name?" the guy hissed in her ear. "It's really fucking annoying."

"I thought it wasn't my name," Z said, grinning a little.

"You're still a liar," the guy said, "but it's one of them. Are you going to answer the question?"

"Yes," Z said. "It's saying my name because it knows who I am, and it's afraid of me."

She twisted the sonic screwdriver upward, and a crack in the ceiling above them splintered.

" _Run_ ," Z said, and tightened her grip on the guy's hand. They darted around the shadowy creature and ran for the door while it was caught, transfixed, by the growing light of the universe creeping in through Georgie's ceiling. Z flung herself at the front door, and she and the guy tumbled out over the doorstep in a heap onto the grass.

"Back, back!" Z chanted, pulling him back up, and they ran all the way to the very back of the yard, where they pressed up against the TARDIS and stared.

"No," the guy breathed, but in front of them, the house was shaking apart, shimmering and volatile, and then suddenly something _ripped_ , and it was torn out of existence. Light flashed around them, blinding, and Z found that she and the guy were holding onto each other, burying their faces in the other's shoulders to shield their eyes from the light.

The guy was trembling slightly in her arms. She patted his back absently, risking a glance over his shoulder at where his house used to be.

There was a plain brick house in its place, flowerpots lined on the steps, window open with the curtains billowing in a light breeze. It looked as though it had been there forever, but it was an entirely new house, and Z looked at it and shook her head.

"Hullo, you old thing," she said. "What have you got for me this time?"

The guy blinked at her, raising his head. "Who are you talking to?"

"The world, I guess," Z said, and stepped back so he could choke and exclaim over the new house.

She set about cleaning her shoes while he made spluttering noises, wiping off the dust and cobwebs from the attic and scraping off the mud from outside. She didn't mind about her dress so much – it was cool, but there were a bunch of great ones in the TARDIS – but these were the most awesome shoes she knew. She wanted to wear them _all the time_. Ruining them in their very first run had not been in the game plan.

"What happened to my _house_?" the guy said finally, turning back to her, and Z raised her eyebrows.

"I don't know, entirely," she said. She sighed, leaned back against the TARDIS, tapping her fingers against the blue. "There was a crack in Georgie's room," she told him, "however long ago he lived here, which you're going to tell me really fucking soon, I hope you know. There was a crack, and it was letting the universe through, giving him nightmares, letting dark things steal into the shadows, and I closed the crack, but maybe – maybe the house had had too much universe to handle, at that point. Maybe too much of the fabric of _everything_ had soaked into its walls. I think it was there too long, I think some of the dark things got too clever at hiding when I was there, and I was out of sorts, I – I only just got this body, that's why I'm late, that's why I've missed him. I messed up a lot, and there was too much universe in that house, so the universe swallowed it back up. But there's a – there's an order of things, it couldn't just be _deleted_ , so there's a house there now, it's just. Not the same one you had before."

The guy was staring at her.

"I'm sorry?" Z said, mostly as an afterthought.

"Um, okay," the guy said. "But what will everybody think?"

"Probably won't notice," Z said. She turned, slowly. "It's kind of weird that you did, actually. Normal guy like you, no big secrets."

He watched her, steadily.

"Normal life, normal head," Z said, staring at him. "Nothing – nothing strange in your mind, no one traipsing through your dreams at night – lying in that house, lying." She swallowed. "You ever have nightmares?"

"Yes," he said.

Z said, voice low, "It'd take a very long time to get into somebody's head like that – dreams are tricksy things, they slip away from you, it'd take years to get that well-entwined in someone's head, I – how long did you say you've lived here?"

"I didn't," the guy said.

Z swallowed. "When did you say Georgie left?"

"I didn't," the guy said.

Z breathed in sharply. "You said he didn't live here anymore," she said.

"He doesn't," the guy said. "No one calls me Georgie anymore." Z stayed perfectly still, and George Ryan Ross III added, "No one else ever did, really."

"You were eight years old," she said. "I was gone _ten minutes_."

"I'd disagree with you there," he said. "I'm twenty-three."

"No," Z said.

"Yeah." He shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but when he sneaked a glance at her, he looked _hungry_ , desperate. "I thought I'd made you up. Everyone told me I'd made you up." Z stared at him, breath caught in her chest, and he shook his head, said, "It gave the psychiatrists at school something new to talk to me about for a while, at least."

"Psychiatrists?" Z managed.

"Plural." He nodded. "I'm an interesting kid, you know. Not everyone gets to have a time and space travelling woman who is apparently a nod to an Oedipus Complex drop into their backyard one midnight and, and promise they're going to come and take you away, help you run away, and then they _never do_ —"

"Georgie," Z said.

"It's Ryan." His voice cracked a little. "Fuck you. It's Ryan."

"There was a glitch," Z said. "It must have been – the TARDIS is new and so am I and just – I didn't mean to."

"Yeah," Ryan said bitterly. "I'm getting that."

"I came back for you," Z said. She grabbed his wrist, dug her nails into his skin and stared at him. "Listen to me. Georgie. Ryan. You have to believe me. I came back for you."

"I thought you would," Ryan said. He swallowed, shook his head. "I thought you would, for years, I thought – and even when they told me, I didn't, but then, I got. I kept getting older and I kept waiting and you never came, and I thought I was crazy, and the nightmares started coming back, and. Fuck you."

"Ryan," Z said. She held onto his hand. It was not in her nature to apologise, she thought, not now, not ever, but she held onto his hand even when he tried to wrench away, out of her grip. "Listen to me," she said. "I'm here now."

"Yeah," Ryan said. "Just in time for my house to disappear and a new one to – will any of my stuff be in there? Will my _life_ be there?"

"Do you still need it?" Z asked.

Ryan stopped trying to squirm away; he stood still, turned back and looked at her.

"I'm not eight years old anymore," he said.

"No," Z said. "You're not." She ran her eyes over him, raising both eyebrows. Ryan actually turned a little pink. Z was delighted, and made a mental note of the reaction for later.

"And," Ryan continued, a little unsteadily, "I have, I have a whole life here. I have things to do. I, I – there are important things—"

"Sure you do," Z agreed. She leaned back against the TARDIS. "I mentioned the time travel thing, right?"

Ryan stared at her. "I'm crazy," he whispered. "Or still dreaming, or—"

"One way to find out," Z said.

"No," Ryan said. "I think there are probably a lot of ways. Some of which are a lot saner than you and your – your _box_."

Z just grinned at him, lazy. She reached with their linked hands and twisted the door handle, let it fall open. Ryan stared inside.

"That's not possible," he said.

"You've had the universe living in your head for fifteen years," Z said. "I don't think you're one to talk about possible, Ryan Ross."

Ryan looked down at their linked hands. "Will it be frightening?"

"All the time," Z said. "How's your running these days?"

"I fall over more," Ryan admitted.

"That's a pity," Z said. "Maybe I should give up the heels, just so one of us has some competence." She stretched her leg out in front of them, considering. "What do you think?"

"I think you're a crazy lady," Ryan said.

Z grinned at him. "Thanks."

"All of space, and all of time," Ryan said. Z didn't think she'd ever said it that clearly. Then again, Ryan had had a lot of time on his own to work things out.

"Yes."

"And you won't – you won't leave me behind."

Z looked at Ryan. "Not this time," she said. "Not ever again. I promise."

"You break your promises," Ryan said.

"Yes," Z said. "Sometimes I do."

Ryan squeezed her hand just once before he dropped it and walked up and in, leaving Z to close the door behind them.


End file.
